ABSTRACT
Robert Miles stresses that racialization is a process and recognition that ‘opens the door to history’ which subsequently ‘opens the door to understanding the complexities of who gets racialized when and for what purpose, and how that changes through time’. Racialization, like racism, is socially constructed. In the European Elections on 4 June 2009, the racist anti-immigration, United Kingdom Independence Party claimed a political breakthrough, the party having gained four extra MEPs to take its total number of seats in the European Parliament to 13 – the same number as Labour, having pushed out Labour to take second place in the overall share of the vote – some 16.5 per cent, or 2.49 million votes. On 20 October 2010, the Financial Times revealed what it referred to as ‘the most drastic budget cuts in living memory, outstripping measures taken by other advanced economies which are also under pressure to sharply reduce public spending’.
